Increasing the production and export potential of the fruit and vegetable sector: challenges and prospects

Increasing the production and export potential of the fruit and vegetable sector: challenges and prospects

Research areas:

Duration: August 2016 - December 2016

Uzbekistan has the highest agricultural resource potential and produces more than 15 million tons of fruits and vegetables per year. High quality of Uzbek fruits and vegetables is well known: for example, the sugar content of Uzbek grape varieties reaches 30%, and dry matter content in tomatoes is than 5.5%, which is significantly higher than many manufacturers of similar products. The produced amounts of fruits and vegetables allow to meet not only the needs of the population, but also to deliver high quality products to foreign markets.

Development of the fruit and vegetable industry and its exports, in addition to direct effects in the form of an increase in physical volumes of production, carries a serious multiplier effect for such areas as manufacturing, storage infrastructure (refrigeration capacity), logistics (supply efficiency) and transport.

The key problem are non-sufficiently high rates of productivity growth in the production of fruits and vegetables, what inhibits the growth of production in general and exports in particular.

The purposes of the research include an analysis of the existing situation in the sphere of production and export of fruits and vegetables; and formulation of recommendations on policy improvement in this area.